Nalyvaiko Uprising

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The Nalyvaiko Uprising (Polish: powstanie Nalewajki, Ukrainian: повстання Наливайка) was a rebellion headed by Severyn Nalyvaiko against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1594 to 1596.

Nalyvaiko led his men through Galicia, Volhynia, and Belarus. His cossacks and rebel Ukrainian peasants took the cities of Bratslav, Husiatyn, Bar, Lutsk, Kaniv, Cherkasy, and Slutsk, Babruisk, and Mahiliou in Belarus. It was in Lutsk where they killed the Polish nobility and the Catholic clergy.

In 1595 the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth dispatched Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski and the royal army to end the rebellion. In response to this, Nalivaiko joined his forces with the Zaporozhian Cossack Hetman Hryhory Loboda but was forced to retreat to left-bank Ukraine, even after defeating the Poles at Bila Tserkva.

On 26 May 1596 the cossacks were surrounded by the Polish force near Lubny. After two weeks of siege, there was unrest as the cossacks began to run out of food and water. Loboda was murdered, and on 7 July 1596 Nalyvaiko was handed over to the Poles, as a condition of surrender. After Nalyvaikos surrender the Poles killed the cossacks.

Nalyvaiko was brought to Warsaw, where he was tortured and quartered and put on public display. After the rebellion all Cossack lands were taken and given to the Polish magnates. Nalyvaiko became a legend and a hero of Ukrainian folk lore.